Friday Find - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

If you like mysteries, you've got to read this book. It had a major negative impact on my productivity last week but it was worth it! It is a modern-day mystery, set in Sweden, with two investigators, neither of whom are police detectives. It concerns, simultaneously, the disappearance of a teen girl back in the 60's and a present day financial swindle. Now, I have to get my hands on the sequel!


I liked this so much, I added it to my Amazon.com widget to the right.

One Christmas Gift Finished

These towels will be a gift for my mother. I used kitchen towels I found at Target and embellished them with scraps of fabric and rick rack. The fabric was left over from making this quilt, called Dutch Treat.

I made the quilt as a gift for my mother last year. While on vacation, she bought the reddish tone-on-tone fabric at Den Haan & Wagenmakers, a store in Amsterdam that reproduces vintage chintz designs. The prints are from a Moda line (I think it was called Kashmir). Mom uses the quilt on the couch in her family room, which is visible from the kitchen, so I thought some coordinating towels would be a nice touch.

The towels were a fast and easy project. I might make more using holiday fabrics and give them as hostess gifts.

I Knew They Would Come In Handy Some Day!

I hoard save shopping bags. I just know they will come in handy sometime. Finally, I've got a use for four small bags. I'm cutting strips for the next quilt project and using these bags to keep them sorted by width. More on this project as I make progress.

More From The Quilt Festival

I've been having a wonderful time looking at the entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. There are hundreds of bloggers participating so you get to see a vast assortment of quilts on display. Go on over to Amy's blog where links will take you to all the other blogs with a quilt in the show. Or, you can skip the talk and just look at the quilts entered in the Flickr pool.

The only downside: looking at all the quilts has given me so many ideas for quilts I must make. So many quilts, so little time!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Amy of ParkCityGirl is hosting a Quilt Festival for bloggers, to give us something fun to do while the quilt business people are at Quilt Market in Houston. The quilt I am showing off is one of my favorites, made using the pattern Sampler Magic by Lori Smith.

My local quilt shop, Pennington Quilt Works (in Pennington, NJ), has a program called Saturday Sampler. You register for the program and pay for the book or pattern that will be used. Then one Saturday a month, you go to the store to see a demonstration of how to make the block for that month and pick up your zip lock bag with the fabric for that month's block. The materials are free as long as you bring your completed block from the prior month. If you don't make it in on the appointed day (now a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday because the program has grown big) or haven't completed the prior month's block, you pay $10 (I think) for the materials for the next block. It is a fun and inexpensive way (as long as you keep up) to complete a quilt top and a good way for beginners to pick up new skills.

They usually have several alternatives for finishing the quilt top and sell kits for finishing, plus they hold back yardage from the collection(s) so you can buy what you need to finish the top to your own design.

Now, technically, I did not make this quilt in the Saturday Sampler program because by the time I knew about it, the session was in full swing (usually lasts for 12 months). So I bought the pattern, shopped by stash, and held my own "block of the week" program in my studio. It was a lot of fun, something I intend to repeat soon.

Here's a closer look at one block and the sashing. My longarm quilter did an excellent job, using tan thread and quilting a vine in the outer border. I selected fabrics that would go well in our family room - dark green walls, white woodwork, tan carpeting and sofa, red wing chair, floral print valence and arm chair, dark wood tables, book shelves, and tv stand. You can see the quilt in action below.

I enjoyed making this quilt so much that I signed up for the Saturday Sampler program the next time it started up. I'll show you that quilt another time.

Thanks, Amy, for hosting another fun festival. I look forward to seeing the quilts on display from the participating bloggers.

Paper Roses Is A Quilt Top

Yes, a finished quilt top! I will piece the backing this weekend and take it to my longarm quilter next week.

My version looks quite different from the pattern illustration (below). I expected that, given the fabrics I chose, which are softer and slightly smaller in scale than the more modern, big prints shown on the pattern. When you like a pattern, it is tempting to try to reproduce the quilt exactly as depicted but I try to give each quilt I make my own "spin" and let myself experiment a bit too. I think that's how l learn and become more proficient at combining fabric and quilt design effectively.

I used fabrics from the Paris Flea Market (Moda), Durham (Lecien) and Mary Rose (Quilt Gate) fabric lines. All have pink roses (or rose-like flowers) on a white background. There is variation in the whites and the pinks, as well as in the scale of the prints. I used a variety of tonal pinks to make the paper pieced roses. Once the roses were pieced, the rest of it went together very quickly.

I'm thinking of naming it Everything's Coming Up Roses. What do you think of the name?

It's Not As If I Don't Have Enough To Do...

I need another quilting project like I need a hole in the head! But my local quilt shop is having their annual Holiday Open House. This is a special event where they showcase all the new Christmas and winter fabrics, display mostly Christmas projects, and have kits for sale for the first time. It is fun to see what they've made and what they think we will like to make.

I held firm on the kits but could not resist this book: Deck The Halls, by Cheryl Almgren Taylor.


The projects in the book are speaking to me. I like this mantel runner...

...and this banner.

I particularly like this Poinsetta quilt and I think I could make it pretty much out of my stash.

If you live in central New Jersey or Bucks County, PA, and can get to Pennington tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 3), I suggest you visit Pennington Quilt Works for the second day of their Holiday Open House.